


Office Zombies

by candyvan



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Gen, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21994852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candyvan/pseuds/candyvan
Summary: Dwight snorts, “Seriously, who had the time to do this? It’s just ridiculous; we’re obviously in hell. There’s no need to point it out through bad graffiti.”
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Office Zombies

**Author's Note:**

> I'm probably never gonna finish this.

“Can you believe this?” Dwight asks, his voice loud in the hallowed halls of the abandoned megastore. 

Jim looks up, shaken from his absent stare into the lifeless eyes at his feet. They used to be blue, he thinks, tilting his head this way at that, enraptured by their glassy gleam. The face is now sunken in and hollow, sloughing skin clinging to what was once a human skull. He drags his eyes away, forcing down thoughts of who this woman was, what her name could have possibly been. 

His knife is heavy in his hands as he pulls it from the corpse. He wipes the ooey, gooey black blood on the carcass’ shredded shirt, and sheaths it in his side holster. 

The  _ schlink  _ of a dagger into a chest cavity used to take more effort. He wonders absently if he has gotten stronger, his hand more steady, or if the bodies have just decayed to the point of becoming floppy meat sacks, easily skewered like a kabob. 

He’s lost track of how many months it’s been since the bombs dropped, since the bodies rose. Dwight would know, he’s sure, but he can’t bring himself to ask. 

“Jim,” Dwight calls again, growing more annoyed by the second. “If you’re dead, I’m telling Pam it’s because you were being an idiot again.” 

“That’s just hurtful,” Jim says candidly, voice an empty echo of the good humor that used to color his tone. 

The words feel like an act now, a desperate attempt to reclaim the man he used to be. He remembers the days he would spend running around the office, playing class clown to his work family, but the memories are gray now, losing their vibrancy and mirth as each second passes in this newfound hell. They’re distorted like a waterlogged machine, glitching in and out of focus so often he finds himself squinting. 

The man he used to be is only kept alive by Pam’s smile when he brings her back watercolors, the light she pours into his soul every time she kisses him after a supply run.

In truth, Jim hasn’t been an idiot in a long time, hasn’t had the luxury of goofing off or playing games if he wants to make it home to her. 

He winds his way through the maze of abandoned aisles to find Dwight staring up at a wall, bloodied ax hanging uselessly in his lax hands. 

If anything, the apocalypse has brought Dwight a strange form of peace. To Jim, Dwight has always been an enigma, a fun kid to tease. Here, in this hell, Dwight’s annoying ticks have become the staple of their community. 

He hates to admit it, but he isn’t sure he would have survived those first few months without Dwight at his side. 

He finds himself standing there now, craning his neck to follow Dwight’s squinted eyes, so much tinier since he lost his glasses a while back. 

In the before, this was Jim and Pam’s preferred store. Pam always loved how they could buy fresh mangos and windshield wipers in the same aisle. Where he looks now used to be a beautiful mural of the Scranton community, with little kids laughing and mom’s smiling and farmers… farming. Now, it has been painted in dark black paint with the crudeness of an amateur. He stares at the words but doesn’t see them, mind slipping as easily as rain between his desperate, thirsty fingers. 

For a second, Jim fantasizes about bringing Pam down here, letting her make a white backdrop and guarding her as she spends hours and days with a paintbrush, drafting up some small pocket of beauty in a world of suffering. 

For the second time today, Dwight’s voice pulls him back to the painful present, “Honestly, the apocalypse makes everybody so melodramatic.”

Jim finally sees the words which make Dwight’s tired eyes narrow: “GOD IS DEAD AND WE ARE IN HELL.” 

Just staring at the words makes something in his chest ache. They’re a mirror to his suffering, a rare acknowledgment that the world didn’t use to be this cruel. 

Dwight snorts, “Seriously, who had the time to do this? It’s just ridiculous; we’re obviously in hell. There’s no need to point it out through bad graffiti.”

“Maybe,” Jim forces himself to say in his familiar, joking tone through dry lips, “It’s a secret code about a hidden bunker somewhere.” 

There’s a long second where Dwight squints at the words, but he quickly shakes his head, “Don’t be ridiculous, Jim. If someone had a secret bunker, they wouldn’t just invite people into it.” 

“My mistake,” Jim airily concedes, turning away from the words. Dwight takes a minute before sighing heavily and following suit. 

Together, they scour the desolate aisles in search of anything they can use. They find an expired can of spaghettios, beans, rice, and a bottle of ibuprofen that must have rolled under a shelf. 

“These hauls are getting more and more scarce,” Dwight says, voicing Jim’s own concerns. “I’m not sure how much longer we can stay in town.” 

“We can’t just move the group,” Jim objects, the panicked words coming out in a quick clatter of teeth and tongue. “Everyone’s settled and safe. Last time we tried, we lost-”

“I know.” Dwight cuts him off before he can say Michael’s name, eyes shuttering tight in pain. Dwight breathes thickly through his teeth before moving on, “But the only other option is going farther for scouting missions, which is equally, if not more so, dangerous. If we could just get to my farm-”

“The farm’s not an option,” it’s Jim’s turn to cut him off, not having the energy for the same argument they’ve heatedly whispered a hundred times. “We’ve talked about this. It’s 45 miles outside of the city, and we don’t have enough cars or gas to shuttle everyone.”

“I’m not talking about everyone, obviously,” Dwight rolls his eyes. “Stanley? Meredith? Phyllis? Most of them are just dead weight. All they do is leech off of us. How long until one of those bumbling idiots causes us to lose someone important? Look, I’ve calculated it. You, me, Pam, the kids, maybe Angela, if we could find her? We’d have a real shot. It’s the perfect number of people to repopulate the Earth in that kind of scenario.” 

Jim levels him with a heavy stare, causing Dwight to squirm. 

“Angela isn’t that important, obviously. I’d settle for Kelly, if we were that desperate.” 

“We’re not repopulating the Earth,” Jim says, tired. 

“Oh, says you, Mr. Two-Spawn. God, Jim, you’re so selfish.” 

Jim sighs, unable to form a response that will make sense to Dwight’s stubborn, survival brain. He turns back to scour the shelves, throat thick with all the words he’s choking on. 

He wants to tell Dwight how he’s barely able to look at baby Phillip these days, so afraid of the man he will be forged into in this harsh world. His eyes water anytime Cece calls him daddy, terrified of losing her to the monsters that haunt them. He can’t even breathe some days, water filling his lungs as he fights back his ocean tears. 

Having children is just having extra hearts that exist outside of himself. To lose either Cece or Phillip would kill him. To do anything that could possibly risk their small, fragile lives feels like holding his head under a guillotine, waiting for the taut string to snap. 

He can’t lose them, refuses to watch their sparkling eyes become vacant, to see their baby soft skin littered with oozing bite marks. 

No. They will stay in Scranton, holed up in their safe office, no matter what. 


End file.
